LEONHIRTH: 'Impeach' may serve as slogan for races

While a common view before last October was that the Republican Party would not want to venture again into a government shutdown, that viewpoint was wrong, and now the term "impeachment" appears to be appearing in more or more diatribes against President Barack Obama.

Impeachment is parallel to an indictment, so impeachment, as in the case of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, is possible without removal from office. Johnson and Clinton survived votes of removal from the Senate.

Richard Nixon resigned rather than face a vote of impeachment and likely a vote of removal from office.

The impeachment of Clinton stemmed from his personal actions rather than his policies as also was generally true in the case of Nixon, although the Watergate-related activities were thoroughly enmeshed with the politics of the day.

Johnson's impeachment in 1868 seems to have more of a parallel with modern-day policies and politics. Johnson is one of the presidents whom Tennessee claims as its own with service in the U.S. House and Senate and as governor and military governor during the Civil War.

Johnson, who as vice president became president after Lincoln's assassination, was at odds with the Radical Right in Congress. The Radical Right sought control of Reconstruction and opposed any policies of leniency toward the South.

Only one vote saved Johnson from removal from office with a two-thirds vote required for removal.

Johnson did not win his party's nomination for the presidency in 1868, but did win re-election to the U.S. Senate in 1875, shortly before his death. Johnson is the only former president to serve in the Senate.

Obama is not facing the aftermath of a military conflict between the states, but the tea party movement has created its own version of a "radical right" in Congress.

Obama, of course, has won election to the presidency twice, unlike Johnson who as vice president succeeded an assassinated president and could not even win his party's nomination to seek re-election.

Grounds for Obama's impeachment, according to its proponents, are violations of the U.S. Constitution, but they seem more policy disputes than "high crimes and misdemeanors" of impeachment.

Whether congressional tea partiers are "true believers" enough to want to put the nation through an impeachment process remains to be seen.

Since the Senate becomes the jury for a vote on removal from office, any push toward impeachment and removal would need a GOP majority in the Senate to proceed beyond merely an impeachment "show" in the House.

Tea partiers, of course, may just want a tea party "show" in the House as they wanted a shutdown "show" to try to make their points.

What is more likely is that "impeachment" will become part of an election mantra for some House candidates: "Elect me, and I will support impeachment of the president."

Obama is hardly the first president to face discussions of impeachment because his opponents disagreed with him, but as the 2013 government shutdown shows, some of those opponents are more than willing to take excessive measures to try to achieve their purposes.

Rhetoric rarely solves problems, but it can make an interesting show.

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LEONHIRTH: 'Impeach' may serve as slogan for races

While a common view before last October was that the Republican Party would not want to venture again into a government shutdown, that viewpoint was wrong, and now the term 'impeachment' appears to